US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on 11 August 2011 about the need to invest in aid for small-scale farmers in Africa and other poor regions as well as help in mitigating the ongoing drought/hunger/famine crisis in the Horn of Africa (photo credit: Yassir Islam, HarvestPlus). … Continue reading
Village scene in Gash-Barka, a region of Eritrea considered a breadbasket and with some 3.5 million head of livestock (photo on Flickr by Charles Fred). Scientist Chris Funk, who is part of a Climate Hazard Group at the University of California at Santa Barbara and also works with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), … Continue reading
Duncan Green, director of research at Oxfam GB, in the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog today, argues that whether or not the more frequent droughts occurring in the Horn of Africa are due to human-enhanced ‘climate change’, and whether or not this region is likely to get wetter or drier in future (neither of which we can … Continue reading
Korr, in northern Kenya (photo on Flickr by Hello Hillary). In the face of the great drought engulfing the Horn of Africa, David Western, a savanna ecosystems expert who is chairman of the African Conservation Centre and a former director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, in Nairobi, Kenya, makes a persuasive case for better management … Continue reading
Projected food security situation in southern Somalia for August through December 2011 (map by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia [FSNAU]). Two critical agencies—the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) and the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU)—reported this week (2 Aug 2011) that famine thresholds have been surpassed in … Continue reading
A Somali nomad with his camel on the way to the deep-sea commercial seaport of Berbera, in the Gulf of Aden, in the north, where live sheep, camels and other livestock are exported to the Gulf states (photo on Flickr by Charles Fred). The information below is from the website of Vétérinaires sans Frontières-Germany. ‘Somalia has been … Continue reading
A mother in Somalia carries the body of her child, who died of hunger, in the last famine to occur in that country, in 1992 (photo on Flickr by Jerry Mannel Reghunadh). Starving Somali families are waiting till their last animal is dead before making a dangerous trek across the desert to refugee camps. The Los … Continue reading
John Vidal in the Guardian argues that ‘to pin this crisis on drought or climate change is wrong. This is an entirely predictable, traditional, man-made disaster, with little new about it except the numbers of people on the move and perhaps the numbers of children dying near the cameras. . . . ‘Aid agencies and … Continue reading
The new moon, which when sighted begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (photo on Flickr by On Being). As Ramadan begins this week, it is estimated that some 1.4 million Somalis are ‘internally displaced’, with an average of more that 12,000 people displaced every month this year due to drought. Most of these people … Continue reading
Herding in Debub Omo, Southern Nations Nationalities and People’s Region, southern Ethiopia (photo on Flickr by CharlesFred). ‘There is a famine in the Horn of Africa. . . . It is at times like this that we get a lot of half-baked commentary about famine. We are told that the problem is drought, or over-population, or … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 